The choice of the next Pope is all about a power play between the left and right, liberals and conservatives. What Pope do we need?
The world needs a liberal Pope. What happens in Rome over the next few weeks is part of the power play that is shaping the world we will live in.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
What sort of Pope do we need? The question is obviously very relevant.
Pope Francis was a surprisingly radical Pope in the terminology of the Catholic church, I wish to make clear. But his successor may not be.
There will be a conclave.
There will be a vote amongst the cardinals.
The vast majority of the Cardinals who are going to vote on Pope Francis' successor were, in fact, appointed to their position by Pope Francis. You might think, as a result, that he has stacked the odds in favour of his own chosen successor, but apparently that's not the way this works.
Most of the people who in recent papal conclaves have gone in as the front runner to become Pope have failed to achieve the post. In fact, it's now recognised that if you want to be Pope, the last thing you want to be is the papal front runner.
So what is it that the church needs? But more importantly, what is it that the world needs?
The Catholic Church is really powerful. It is the biggest single Christian denomination around the world, and it is, right now, probably the only one that is growing around the world, particularly in the global south. It has an appeal that, at present, the protestant church does not seem to be able to emulate. There's a mysticism to it that actually meets a need in people, and I sort of get that. With a name like mine, it's unsurprising that I come from a Catholic background, even though my father gave up Catholicism to marry my mother, who was a Baptist, and they compromised on the Church of England, which is the ultimate compromise when it comes to faith. I then chose to be a Quaker, but that's a different story.
The fact is that the Pope has influence over maybe a billion people around the world. That's one in eight people on this planet. And that soft power goes way beyond the limits of the church itself.
A Pope who is liberal minded, who is open to the idea of the influence of women within the church, leads the way for women everywhere.
A Pope who is open to the marriage of priests changes the perception of the role, or lack of role, of sex within the ministry of the church.
A Pope who is in favour of condoning gay relationships and other relationships that are outside the formal structure of marriage clearly sets a social purpose for the church, which is much broader than just for those who are believers.
A pope who believed, as this last one did, that there was a threat from inequality and who believed that the power structures of the world that created inequality are actually undermining the wellbeing of the vast majority of people who live on this planet is a powerful voice for those who are being threatened by the current structure of worldwide capitalism.
So, the Pope is a major influencer.
When a Pope speaks, then the world notices.
If we get a right-wing pope, somebody who wants to be anti-abortion in a way that the church has become a little soft on of late, or who is opposed to the role of women, or who is anti-gay rights, and who is anti-trans rights, and who is anti the idea of using the power of the church to actually support the wellbeing of the poor by questioning the role of worldwide capitalism; such a pope would be a deeply regrade step.
Now, in my opinion, they would also not be following the teachings of Christ, but that's my opinion, and you don't have to take any notice of that.
But the point is, for those who are not believers, and the vast majority of people, of course, are not Christian believers around the world, such a Pope would represent a rise in right wing power, a rise in the power of the male hierarchy, and a rise in the power of the maintenance of the status quo as opposed to the development of human rights.
This choice of a new Pope is therefore really important.
I'm unambiguous in my wish. I want a liberal Pope.
I want a Pope who will be broad-minded.
A Pope who will understand where people are.
A Pope, who will understand that there is no such thing as a single human being of a common type who is uniform and across the whole world is the same.
That men and women need to be respected for who they are.
That straight and gay people need to be respected for who they are.
That those people who are living in poverty need to be protected and need to be supported.
That so many other groups in society, the young, the elderly, need care and support, and that government must therefore do it, and that the charity that has been provided by churches in the past is not enough to ensure that their well-being can be maintained.
That there need to be constraints on the power of some in the world to ensure that everybody else has a chance.
All of these things matter.
All of these things can be influenced by a liberal Pope. We need a liberal Pope.
Over the next few weeks, we have another of the major litmus tests that are going to go on around the world right now in elections, in power play, in political economy as a result, and the election of this new Pope can be seen as nothing less than that.
It is a power play between liberals and conservatives, between the status quo and moving on, between the hierarchies of power and the rights of the vulnerable.
That's why we need a liberal Pope.
We need a Pope who's willing to see that people are more important than the power of a few. And if we get a conservative Pope, it will be the few who win, and that's why we need a liberal Pope so that the many do instead.
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One point worth making and of course it isnt peculiar to the Papacy, being President of the USA or possibly even Prime Minister of the UK is the same, is that you are ‘constrained’ by the mind set of the organisation you work in.
If I was to look in the UK at the three great 60’s reforms, abortion, divorce and the abolition of the death penalty some elements of them were limited by what was politically acceptable at the time.
It would be interesting to know what reforms Pope Francis might have liked to introduce but realised that it was simply impossible.
The challenge I suggest is in part to change the mindset of the whole organisation
It took the churches 100 years to get to grips with evolution, never mind quantum theory and relativity.
In the past 50 years we have had a lot of research in near death experiences. They give us a different view of consciousness to the materialist one. Religion itself is the connection -“religari” is the root-with spirituality. If there is no metaphysical dimension, then religion is just a set of ethics.
Obviously the evidence is disputed but we are not in the same place as we were 100 years ago when the universe was considered measurable matter and energy with no room for ‘psychic energy.’
The church has never really been willing to engage with this sort of thinking even though, potentially, it could be confirmatory. Some of the Eastern religions, as with the Dalai Lama, have been willing to do so. His conversation with scientists make for very interesting reading.
In the 1930s the Church of England had a commission into Spiritualism and there were two reports. The minority report said have nothing to do with it. The majority there are ways we can work with this. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to publish it. It was leaked post war and nothing happened.
The churches overall are losing support. Not, IMHO because of their values but because many cannot believe in the supernatural element.
Churches cannot believe in the supernatural element???????? LOL.
No, I meant that many people do not ‘believe’ because they cannot accept the supernatural elements.
I my youth I knew a medium who had been so since his youth. When sceptics say ‘they do it by cold reading , he gave specific and often intimate pieces of information. I have read a lot since, and heard things from my clients in therapy and he is not unique.
I remember he said, our state in the afterlife is created by our life here. Generous loving people are i a good place. The selfish and evil not but we can all evolve. It has “B -all ” to do with whether they think Jesus was the second person of Trinity and thus have all their sins forgiven. We have personal responsibility. There is no get out of jail card.
This is supported by the extensive literature. I think this may be a major reason the churches don’t want to be too close to dealing with e.g. the implications of near death experiences.
We don’t need a nimcompope
The “west”/global north has a long history of dominating the global south.
Those of us with roots in this part of the world, ethnically, politically, culturally, financially, have that dominance deeply embedded within us, even if we consciously try to counter it.
But for centuries we have exported our values all over the world, for worse, or, sometimes, for better. I know I am a child of Empire, and have spent my life trying to escape that heritage and the assumptions it has planted deep inside me.
Something we have to be careful about, is that with regard to our values, we don’t apply imperial, colonial attitudes in lecturing the global south about the obvious superiority of our liberal values. It’s easily done, I know because I’ve found myself doing it.
It’s a bit like politically liberal middle class people lecturing left-behind communities about what’s good for them and calling them “deplorables” (Hillary Clinton) or “bigoted woman” (Gordon Brown).
The balance of power has shifted in the global Christian church to the south. That requires some adjustment and humility from those of us in the North/West, so we avoid some of the mistakes of our colonial forbears.
How might a Nigerian Anglican leader fresh from yet another round of funerals of his martyred flock, feel about being lectured to, by an American Episcopalian about socially liberal values? It’s complicated, and painful.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2023-04/over-50000-christians-killed-in-nigeria-by-islamist-extremists.html
Thinking geographically rather than denominationally, a couple of surprising facts (treat these figures with caution – but not scepticism)..
The largest Christian church in the world? China. (38m official govt figures 2018).
The fastest growing church in the world? Iran. (>1m)
In both countries for obvious reasons, esp. in Iran, the church functions often through unregistered underground networks rather than through organised institutions (the ones Chinese government figures relate to).
I suppose what I am calling for is social, cultural, ethnic, political, economic and religious humility, from all of us in the global north.
I’d also like to see another Pope like Francis, but that’s for the Cardinals at the conclave to decide, hopefully under divine guidance rather than any sort of human manipulation.
Ideally, an RC equivalent to Anglican (Episcopalian) agnostic Richard Holloway, if such exists among the cardinals which I very much doubt.
Sad fact is that the mainstream media did not fully report or support the beliefs and concerns of the last Pope – particularly regarding inequality – until after his death.
It is difficult or impossible to disentangle the Church and the Vatican from the Roman Empire … just watching the journey to Santa Maria Maggiore , crossing the Tiber, fringing the Capitoline Hill and the Forum and then past the Coliseum , and the umbrella pines , brought back all the reasons why it was my favourite city – (probably started with I Claudius) .
Yes Richard ‘we need a liberal Pope’ – but apparently Francis was really detested by many in the hierarchy.
I suppose the best that can happen is someone who has Francis’s humanity and ability to communicate and connect directly with people at large and use that as a way of maintaining some kind of wary truce between the anti abortionists, anti gay, anti women hierarchy and those wanting progressive reform .
Francis did find a way of speaking truth to power in a way which seems to be vanishingly rare – the homily yesterday praised his Mass at the Mexico border – – right in front of Trump
Thank you, Richard.
Another and ideally in his 50s or at the latest 60s and in the mould of Francis would be ideal.
A Robert Sarah or the Hungarian whose name escapes me would be a disaster.
There are nuns in my extended family, one of whom, an Aussie of Mauritian parentage, runs a soup kitchen at her convent in Detroit, but has paused as she’s recovering from cancer. She met Pope Francis some years ago. Her aunt, mum’s goddaughter, is also a nun, in Sydney. Their aunt is also a nun, in Mauritius.
If one includes mum’s oligarch* cousins, there are two cardinals, Robert Margeot and Maurice Piat, and a bishop and two priests. Why is mum not an oligarch? Her grandfather was kicked out for marrying out of the Franco-Mauritian aristocracy and the family disinherited from what is now Ciel Group.
Upsetting the hierarchy of power is inherited then?
Thank you, Richard.
I had not thought of it like that, but like what you say.
My family clusters around teaching and banking.
The scourge is orthodoxy.
Going back to basics.
I am troubled by this recent ruling about what a woman is.
About a lack of curiosity.
About a problem with variety.
All tinged with a sense of authoritarianism and certainty.
Worrying stuff.
The Robles with the ruling is it is utterly unenforceable without requiring people prove their biological sex before going into a loo, which creates massive opportunity for abuse.
my son was born female. He will have no difficulty about using the male loos.
Had it been the other way, it would be more of a problem.
The instances of men entering female only spaces for predatory reasons is very small compared with the rest of widespread abuse that woman suffer.
Since the ruling he has been contacted by friends to support and he has been reassuring them. There are still many good people there who don’t judge by appearances. He is in a same sex marriage and a valued member of his Anglican church. Respect people for who they are.
There is a simple answer to the toilet issue. All public toilets, including in schools and hospitals and all public changing roomes have no ‘public areas’ All have only lockable cubicles. That way there is no need for them to be gender segregated.
Agreed. Completely.
When the
Reporting rate
Effective investigation rate
Prosecution rate
Court conviction rate
&
Deterrent sentencing rate
for sexual assault and rape have risen above their current disgracefully low levels, then I am open to persuasion that all the gender identity rows are actually sbout protectinng women.
Meanwhile, my religious and science training leave me totally unconvinced that this is anything other than a destructive form of identity politics.
I can think af at least 6 fully “biological” realities that help (or hinder) how someone views their sesse of gender and/or their sexuality –
(chromosomes, gonads, in utero foetal hormones, maternal hormones, brain development, secondary sexual characteristics), and they can exhibit varying levels of expression and often conflict).
From a religious standpoint I’ve never been comfortable with the way some Christians have used a creation story from Genesis to legitimise the imposition of a so- called “Christian” understanding of gender or marriage on the whole of civic society.
I’m also conscious that many of the more intolerant attitudes that get referred to as “orthodoxy” in Christianity, can be surprisingly late arrivals from a historical point of view. The 4th (Rome) & 19th (N America) centuries in particular.
“About a lack of curiosity.”
That would be heresy then? The Catholic Churchs used to be (still is?) keen on rooting out heresy
(I say Sebastian – pile the faggots high old chap – we have three heretics for the Satruday nigh burning – guilty of what you say – oh they think cos jesus was the son of God he came after God – yes terrible isn’t it?). Think the stuff in parantheses is a joke?
Anyway – why do Catholics need a pope? Once upon a time he was “just” the Bish or Rome – is all – & his main function was admin and money counting (Heretic – Catherine Nixey – again).
Rant starts.
Having read: Barabarians (Terry Jones), Nixey (The Darkening Age and Heretic), Russels History of Western Philosophy, Colin Wilson’s “Criminal History of Mankind”, Gibbon Decline & Fall (mostly from Pov of light entertainment) and bolt in Voltaires Bastards plus perhaps 20 odd other related books (e.g. Crusades through Arab eyes) and the conclusion is that the early church was founded by people ranging from mad through to pure evil (= Heinrch Himmler evil), it was & still is anti-human (humans are naturally curious – the church/most churches ain’t). From circa 350AD when it gained real power I’d guess the church killed, directly/indirectly 300 – 500 million people (in the late 15th/early 16th it gave the green light = legitimised – the translatlantic slave trade) etc etc ad nauseum. The only reason I can write this is post-1500AD western humainty recovered its sanity and recognised Christianty for what it has mostly been – mad, deluded and for the most part offering only evil outcomes. That for some Christian sects “mad delunded and evil” no longer apply is only because humans have manged to wrest political control/social mores control from skirt clad sadists and lunatics.
I could have gone to a Catholic Grammer (whet to a “normal” one instead) as my mother (a Catholic) said: I’m not having my son educated by men in skirts.
The only thing the argentine did was make the Roman Church more efficient – he was not a “liberal” & indeed “liberal” has no meaning wrt the Catholic Church.
Ecclesia Catholico delenda est.
Rant ends.
I am not sure I can agree with all that, although I consider the church a human power construct open to abuse like all others.
I worry that this one individual will set the tone of a whole movement.
I hear worrying undertones of even younger people wanting more ‘conservative’ approaches to all sorts of things. I’m interested in why this is so. Is it the product of identity politics which these days has been reduced to nothing but competing for resources, with one strand of need being accused of being less valid than another (when the real truth is that over all, funding for services is subject to austerity)? Is it case of we can’t afford you gender – re assignation so we don’t give a fuck, it’s your problem?
I have just been watching the FA Cup semi final (sponsored by beer makers and an airline that seems to be based in a Whahhibist state) on ITV and seen adverts with MacDonald’s who peddle crap food promoting football for kids and adverts encouraging people to bet before the 21:00.
And yet another bunch of people decided that what the legal definition of a woman was more important, and certain people think that God had a straight forward model for how the people he created should have sex or not. According to Michael Hudson, The Roman Catholic Church thought it better to meddle in the politics of the bedroom rather than boardroom.
I know what I find more worrying and less acceptable. I hope we get a Pope with his priorities right.
Thank you for the thoughtful, heterodox threads on Christianity.
Any chance of your being put forward for the vacant post of Archbishop of Canterbury?
But, more seriously, might it be worth considering differentiating Christianity into two types?
1) Source Christianity which involves people living in ways, in their present contexts, which seek to apply the secular aspects of Jesus’ reported life
2) Derivative Christianity which is so much more orthodox and involves stated beliefs, social constructs, organisational structures, ceremonies, hierarchies and so on
Here is an outline of Source Christianity from “The Gospel of Christian Humanism” by Arthur G. Broadhurst:
“to honor truth, and show compassion, to stand with the victims of this world against the oppressors, to support the weak and the powerless against the abusers and the comfortably powerful, to speak truth to power and to maintain one’s integrity no matter what the cost. In short being a follower of Jesus meant then and now to be faithful to spirit of Jesus and his teachings.”
Thus Source Christianity reduces/avoids the diversions and subversions to which Derivative Christianity has been and is vulnerable.
Might we benefit from a Pope who is sympathetic with Source Christianity?
Yes, in a word.
I get the point, and I share common ground with both secular and Christian humanists – as long as they don’t repeat the mistake of “constantinian” or “theocratic” religion, which says, “I believe this….” so YOU (and ALL citiizens) are mandated to behave this way (or suffer civil penalty) – or “your belief is not permitted to be expressed in our civic system”.
You see, my “source” Chistianity, includes Jesus saying to Peter, “and you, who do YOU say I am?” to which Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and his statement of belief is affirmed by Jesus. (Matthew 16:16). For me that is a vital, life-sustaining spiritual reality. It doesn’t “frighten” me into moral behaviour, it doesn’t “motivate” me in hope of eternal reward, it sustains me, like food, drink, and human love sustain me, and is part of what makes me me, it is literally my “source”. The Jesus who turned over tables in the Gentile court of the temple, said, “My Father’s house is a house of prayer, you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
That’s a potent mixture of anti-racism, economics, crime prevention and Christology. Not easy to separate into source and derivative Christianity.
So i don’t like to see it excluded in the sort of definition you have given. My forbears have made that mistake over and over again. I’m loth to see others fall into the same trap.
Basically, I agree with you, but it looks different from this corner of the room, so I hope my voice can be heard.
But why do you need to include Christianity in your “source Christianity”. All it needs is for people to choose to live moral, caring lives, treating all other people with dignity and respect. Why do you need to insert any kind of organised religion?
Cindy – you ask me: ‘But why do you need to include Christianity in your “source” Christianity’?
Must I EXclude it?
Why do I even need to justify it? Maybe if this was an apologetics debate, that would be appropriate, but I surely shouldn’t have to “defend” my faith in a discussion about the ordering of civil society? Discuss how it affects my behaviour or my treatment of my fellow citizens, yes, but my belief per se? I think that is possibly overstepping a boundary.
That’s the challenge I have for the new type of society we are attempting to build or at least talk and write about.
I am open about my refusal to compel belief, my refusal to exclude those of different faith or none, indeed my desire to seek common ground in our shared humanity. But is that tolerance to be reciprocated by those who do not share my faith?
If not, then I wonder who will draw the boundaries and do the excluding or including?
If we refuse to compel belief (and of course we should) then will we also refuse to compel DISbelief? Or that it is okay to believe in and adopt the ethical content of the sermon on the mount but that one MUST NOT believe in the personal claims of its preacher?
Do we replace “theocracy” (which I do not support, snd the past and present sins of which I do not excuse) with a subtle form of “seculocracy” (I just invented that word) in which I remain a 2nd class citizen because of having religious faith?
To put it bluntly, who is welcome, as a co-belligerent in this quest for a new kind of politics?
We’ve all been saying nice things about the late Pope Francis. His faith, his relationship with, and beliefs about Jesus of Nazareth are inseperable from who he was and how he behaved as Pope. It’s the same with me. It’s part of the package that makes me, me. You don’t have to agree with it or even approve of it, but when we come into the civic square to talk about the ordering of civic society it comes with me, and together we have to agree on what limits that society places on the outward expression of one person’s religious beliefs and another person’s secular atheism.
I think we make a fairly good effort at that here in this space, and I want that to continue, because I value YOUR contributions, BECAUSE of, not DESPITE your personal beliefs.
Is that an answer to your reasonable question?
Sooner or later, we have to face these sorts of questions. If it isn’t about religion it will be about something else.
What do tolerance and diversity look like, outside the textbook or manifesto, in practice?
Thanks
And agreed
I don’t trust extremes
That means I promote tolerance
I feel your pain Cyndy, I surely do.
A very powerful person is about to be appointed – by too few people and far too homogenised – to lead a movement that is supposed to be a movement for good.
As Richard has pointed out, anything ‘man made’ from the church to AI has his/her indelible weaknesses stamped on it somewhere. The DNA will be faulty come what may.
Which came first? Humanity or the church? And who are we to say? The persons in each human epoch behave as if only they have succeeded or failed to address man’s ills.
I wasn’t there at the conception of man but all I see is an animal that when compared to other beasts is rather puny and weak. Human physical frailty DEMANDS organisation into numbers to survive. Human brain power is the driver. That is what archaeology and history has taught me.
In other words the individual and the collective were meant to subsist together – inter-dependently. A find that a fact when I reflect deeply on it. The Neo-liberals are wrong.
What is the difference between government and the church in reality? They were both conceived to generate numbers in defence of or in the pursuit of some sort of order. The fact is that these aims have been hijacked on and off by bad actors over our history.
At the root of humanity are concepts like kindness and empathy. Rather than being weaknesses, these are strategic strengths, the glue that make us strong and leads to other gatherings of common interest. And it just so happens that they can be used to generate good and bad outcomes. These attributes can be abused. Read for example how Heinrich Himmler gave pep talks to his SS and Einsatzgruppen as they murdered across Eastern Europe, empathising with the awfulness of killing women and children close up but for a better world apparently?
How many times has someone in a Church decided to use a piece of scripture to justify an exception to this empathy and kindness to express their own very human prejudice? Too often. I have often said to clerics that God is man and man is God. God is man’s mirror image – his hopes and fears and good bad are to me indivisible. God is merely a projection of man to my mind. Benign one minute; angry the next.
How do we fix this? Maybe it is only time that fixes it Cyndy? We once had debt jubilees and we may have them again. If they do not happen in our lifetime, there is no reason to suppose they will not happen again. We can just count ourselves in this age as unfortunate. We have also seen those who abuse kindness and empathy wiped out too – throughout history.
My argument in the end still stands – the human individual and the collective are linked. They go together naturally. Even Thatcher could not get her head around that.
I spent time reading on diversity this weekend, and virtually ignited anything else.
You are on a strong wavelength PSR.
I will have more to say in this soon.
Occasionally, of course, a pope is elected as a compromise candidate who can turn out to be rather transformative.
Considered to have been elected as elderly “caretaker pope”, pope John XXIII, elected in October 1958 at age 76, then called Vatican II council (which met for sessions between 1962 to 1965) — with some radical Catholic theologians in support — as the pope believed the church needed “updating” (Italian: aggiornamento). The Catholic Church is still to implement some of the reforms for that council!
It makes us aware that the first impressions of the media may not be accurate!
Richard
Thank you for the feedback.
On my statement that God is man and man is God – I just wanted to clarify what I mean as an atheist who is not to wanting to just offend people who ‘believe’ with what seem like throw-away comments.
The projection of a God like presence is to me is symptomatic of a desire by man to be ‘over-seen’, to have a presence that is setting moral and ethical limits – feedback even – on man’s behaviour.
So, the ‘God projection’ as I call it, is SOCIAL in nature, and it is related to how human beings depend on feedback from fellow groups of other people, how they are accepted, how social norms are reinforced, which relates to being in a group for safety or survival or just company or excellent conversations and ideas – to fend off loneliness and isolation even.
In other words, mans need for a God is a need for reference, validation and even to be told off if necessary by some other. God is manifestation of an imagined (for me anyway) just and better version of ourselves we can put our trust in. I honestly believe that counter to what the Neo-liberals tell us, man craves regulation, rules, guidance – in other words ORDER. Simply because it is better for social relations.
It is the Neo-liberals and their rich sponsors who have got it wrong. It is they who have re-written our history. It is they who are poisoning us and remaking us. It is their abnegation of what humans actually are I find the most repulsive thing about them along with how the far right abuses our social capacities to set us against each other.
Thank you.